Robby Krieger

Not chronological, and author assumes you have followed and read all the other books, films, and news articles about the Doors. However this was a mostly enjoyable read, B&W photographs, with bite-size chapters on events in Robbie's life, his influences, his childhood, his family (including his twin brother, Ronny), his own addictions to drugs, the in-fighting between John and Ray over publication of Ray's autobiography: "...put up his dukes like he was the Notre Dame mascot "; Sometimes laugh-out-loud funny: "...idyllic Eden of the Laurel Canyon scene...memorialized in photos...hazy, sun-dappled images of young people hanging out, smiling, and playing music in what seems like a perpetual golden hour, you can see what it means to really live life, and to be free.
Just remember: they all had crabs."!
My favourite parts of this book were the references to the songs that inspired Robby himself, which I enjoyed playing on my sound system during the reading of this book, and the mystery of the Mexican song about a mosquito which Robbie could never identify (I wondered if it was actually "La Cucaracha" song about a cockroach).… (més)

I love the Doors music (I used to sing "People are strange" as a lullaby to my children), and have been looking forward to reading Robby Krieger's book for a while. This is not a chronological autobiography of Krieger, it is more of a series of vignettes of the Doors and his life. It jumps about back and forth in time, which bothered me at first, but maybe because I was expecting a basic memoir. I have read both Ray Manzarek's and John Densmore's books. Of the three, Krieger's book comes across as perhaps being more honest and truthful. He tells of the faults of his band-mates (and himself), and the issues he has had with them, but also tells of their extreme talent, the magic and harmony that they had when playing together, and he seems to have always considered them as close friends. His chapters on the deaths of Ray Manzarek and Jim Morrison are very moving (John Densmore, of course is still alive). He also talks about his own family, the death of his twin brother, and his own drug addiction, along with chapters on the Florida concert incident with Jim that never happened and the Oliver Stone movie that was a complete fabrication of the Doors history (but he thought it entertaining film). If you like the Doors, you will enjoy this book. And pop some Doors records or CDs on while reading it...… (més)